College admissions decisions are pushing kids off the deep end.

Of the 1.2 million kids who applied to college this year, many of them won’t get into their dream school, which will be a huge gut-punch from admissions officers they will never meet, analyzing factors beyond their control.

As results come out, we have to remind them of something that seems far less obvious when you’re seventeen: the college you go to does not define you, even if 76% of high schoolers say that the college admissions process is a life-defining event. 

Admissions has morphed into a torturous, all-consuming years-long process that can leave any kid feeling like an abject failure in spite of their accomplishments. “College rejection depression” has its own corner of the internet. 

Things have become so bad, sources have told The Post instances of self-harm and even suicide have been linked to college decisions at elite prep schools. Social media is also awash with theories linking student deaths to admissions.

For the sake of youth mental health, we have to instill in young people that life is worth living, even at your backup school.

Dr. Dee Apple, a clinical psychologist in Princeton, New Jersey, who served as the Director of Counseling at The Lawrenceville School for more than two decades, described college decision season as “a time where the........

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